I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-aven, and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture?
Hear this, O priests! Pay attention, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.
And the revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them.
I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore; Israel is defiled.
Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord.
The pride of Israel testifies to his face; Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt; Judah also shall stumble with them.
With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them.
They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord; for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.
Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven; we follow you, O Benjamin!
Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment; among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure.
The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.
But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.
When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together; they murder on the way to Shechem; they commit villainy.
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim's whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.
For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed. When I restore the fortunes of my people,
when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely; the thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside.
By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery.
They are all adulterers; they are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers.
For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him, for all this.
As they go, I will spread over them my net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.
They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.
Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.
Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.
For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it.
Israel is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless vessel.
Though they hire allies among the nations, I will soon gather them up. And the king and princes shall soon writhe because of the tribute.
Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing.
As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.
Rejoice not, O Israel! Exult not like the peoples; for you have played the whore, forsaking your God. You have loved a prostitute's wages on all threshing floors.
Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.
They shall not remain in the land of the Lord, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord, and their sacrifices shall not please him. It shall be like mourners' bread to them; all who eat of it shall be defiled; for their bread shall be for their hunger only; it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
What will you do on the day of the appointed festival, and on the day of the feast of the Lord?
The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad, because of your great iniquity and great hatred.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
ESV® Permanent Text Edition (2016). The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers.
Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved.